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It was July 15, 1999. As the sold-out crowd of over 44,000 rose to their feet, clapping and whistling for the man walking toward the pitcher’s mound, Brad Adam looked on in mild shock. A sportscaster for KATU, the ABC affiliate in Portland, Oregon, he’d anticipated seeing Ken Griffey Jr. throw out the first pitch in […]

Jerry Cram’s signature moment in the big leagues came on September 11, 1974. He threw eight scoreless innings in relief for the New York Mets — the 17th through the 24th of what became a 25-inning loss to the St. Louis Cardinals. If the Mets could only have scratched across a run, Cram would have […]

Terry Hughes was a ballyhooed prospect. “I wanted to sign Hughes more than any boy I’ve ever seen,” said Boston Red Sox scout Mace Brown. “He’s got all the equipment.”1 After the Chicago Cubs made Hughes the second overall pick in the June 1967 draft, their manager, Leo Durocher, said, “All I know is that […]

As a player on the great New York Yankees teams of the 1950s and later as a manager with five different major-league clubs, Billy Martin was known to be brash, bold, and fearless. He played the game hard and made no excuses for the way he handled himself on or off the field. Many people, […]

During the first seven seasons of the 2000s, no team in the National League won more games or enjoyed more success than the St. Louis Cardinals. Guided by Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa, the Cardinals won 658 games, five division titles, and one World Series. During the 2004-2006 seasons, La Russa handed the […]

Depending on who you listened to, the New York Yankees were either shell-shocked or coolly determined as they approached the third game of the 1963 World Series. The venue had shifted across the continent to Los Angeles, but the pall of the Yankees’ losses to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the first two games of […]

When a team goes through a two-decade slide like the one the Pirates endured starting in 1993, the seemingly never-ending string of thrashings can run together as a whirlwind of despair in a fan’s mind. Still, in this plethora of defeats, some losses carry a much greater sting than do others. After a miserable 2010 […]

In 1977 New York City was a bleak place. It was slowly emerging from near-bankruptcy. Earlier in the summer, widespread looting occurred during a 25-hour blackout. The serial killer known as Son of Sam terrorized residents. However, inside the recently renovated ballpark in the Bronx, the Yankees were in contention to repeat as the American […]

Putting on his Chicago Cubs uniform for the first time, recently acquired pitcher Don Cardwell just wanted to secure his spot in the rotation. He did more than that — he pitched the game of his life. The Cubs were already in disarray a month into the 1960 season. Skipper Charlie Grimm, who had guided […]

The last home game of the 1952 season at Braves Field was played before 8,882 fans and nearly 32,000 empty seats on a Sunday afternoon in late September. Under the circumstances, this wasn’t much of a surprise. There are plenty of numbers one can use to describe the ’52 Braves, most of them bad. Boston’s […]